Reflections on 2016

If I have been learning anything this year, it is that God loves to keep my feet firmly planted in mid air. I am reminded of something Fenelon wrote,

Faith seems to keep us constantly up in the air, never quite being certain of what is going to happen in the future; never quite able to touch a foot to solid ground. But faith is willing to let God act with the most perfect freedom, knowing that we belong to Him and are to be concerned only about being faithful in that which He has given us to do for the moment (Let Go, Letter 14).

I am definitely learning that. Maybe you are too.

One of the best things about reading that quote of Fenelon’s is that it is very comforting to me that he felt the same way back in the late seventeenth century. If you are feeling that way, welcome to the Master’s classroom. It’s very common to feel like that. In fact, I’d be more worried if you were not feeling that way from time to time. If your life is not flush with circumstances, relationships, problems, headaches, and heartaches that drive you out of your comfort zone looking for Jesus something is wrong.

There are a number of things on my plate that are well beyond my pay-grade to address and clearance to understand. But I have been learning that more often than not God wants it that way. He wants us and the people around us to know that when He comes through, there is no change people are going to mistake Him for me or you. He gets the glory. We get the joy. That is how He works.

2016 set me up with a boatload of problems that require God sized provision, wisdom, and intervention. I suspect 2017 will see these problems wonderfully and graciously solved. And in all probability those solved problems will be replaced with new bigger problems. That’s life. And that is how we learn to live by faith. If we want to grow tall in our ability to love, lead, and serve others, we need to be growing in humility, faith, and dependence on God. And those things are not learned on the beaches of life. They are learned in the uncertain, unnerving, dark places of life. That’s what all them problems are for.

Happy New Year my friends.